Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

 After a disappointing performance at the event in Okotoks, I was determined to train so hard to be in the best possible shape I could be, ready to represent Canada at the Backyard Ultra Team World Championships out in BC in October.  There is no denying that my training had gone extremely well. I'd mixed things up this time, and instead of doing 6 hour long runs, I'd asked my coach to schedule timed runs instead, and to give me multiple runs throughout the day on the weekends. This saw me running close to 100km on several weekends, where I would complete something like 2 hours in the morning, an hour in the afternoon, and another 90 minutes later in the evening. One weekend, I did 5 x 10km runs in one day, followed by a 2 hour and an hour the following day, and this seemed to prepare me both physically and mentally for the race. I had also been sure to get some trail running into my schedule. The course out in BC was going to be quite hilly and technical, and the city in whic...

Just a couple of weeks after the River's Edge Ultra 50k, I found myself back in Devon, this time to compete in the last race of the Northern Alberta 5 Peaks trail running series. I had once again opted for the Enduro, which would see me running two laps of the course which would total around 15km or more. I'd had confirmation that I was to join the Canadian team at the team world championships of the Backyard Ultra in just two weeks time, so I went to Devon erring on the side of caution, not wanting to get injured just before my biggest race of the year. It was now October, and those cool and frosty mornings had crept in. The trees looked resplendent with their golden hues, and the trails were in great condition with no muddy patches and certainly no snow. I was looking forward to just taking it easy once again, running comfortably hard but not flat out racing, using this race as a final fitness test before the team event. I took things pretty easy on the first lap, and once ag...